saving me
by lost in silence x
Summary: He squeezed her tightly against him, as if he could protect her from the world.
1. Chapter 1

Jade stood in front of Beck's bathroom mirror in a pair of shorts and a tanktop, gazing at her marred skin and wondering how she had let it get so bad. She fingered a particularly purple bruise on her thigh, traced the shape over and over until the touch of her fingers became numb. When had she gotten that one? Was it when he had pushed her down the stairs? Or when he had shoved her againt the wall when she was late returning from school? She couldn't remember, and in the back of her mind, she knew something was wrong with that. She sighed and opened the door to the bathroom.

Beck layed on his bed, flipping through a magazine. He looked up, and his dark brown eyes immediately burned with a fire Jade didn't reconize.

He sat up abruptly, letting the magazine fall from the bed. "Jade." His voice was slow, calm, but his hands were clenched into fists. "Where did you get those bruises?"

Jade closed her eyes. She had practised this many times before.

_I slipped down the stairs._

_I fell off my bed._

But she knew that Beck wouldn't believe her. She knew that as soon as she fixed her eyse on his, he would be able to read her face. Because try as she might, she could not fool Beck Oliver.

Jade looked steadily at her boyfriend. Took a deep breath, and told him. The word felt dirty in her mouth.

_My father. _

_My own father._

The only person who is supposed to love her unconditionally. The only person she is suppose to be able to trust.

That person was not her father. That person was standing in front of her.

Beck came forward now, quick, slick movements and in a moment, his arms were around her.

"I'm going to kill him," he murmured against her hair. She buried herself into his chest and took pleasure in the warmth that radiated off his skin.

She felt completely safe here.

Jade shook her head. "You can't say anything, Beck."

He gazed at her aggressively. "What the hell do you mean I can't say anything? Look what he did to you!" He gestured at her bruised body, and she uncharacteristically felt embarrassed under his stare.

"I'm going to tell someone. I will," she said slowly. "But I need time. He's my father."

Beck shook his head, but wrapped his arms around her once more.

He squeezed her tightly against him, as if he could protect her from the world.


	2. Chapter 2

Jade could remember, clearly, only one time when she had cried.

That was the day she stoppd being Jadelyn West.

She was 14 years old, and she could remember sitting on her bed in her pink skirt, staring at her flats as her parents' loud, angry voices difrted through the door. She could remember, vividly, the slam of the door as her mother walked right out of her life.

That was the day she traded in her bright colored skirts for black jeans and dark flannel shirts. Her cute little flats for heavy combat boots.

Her vulnerability for a tough facade.

Because no one was going to hurt her anymore.

No one.

Now, she sat on her bed again, and this time, she couldn't but wonder at what an idiot she had been for thinking she could fool everyone.

Because she was hurt.

Tears threatened to fall and she tried to hold them back, tried to be strong. Tried to be Jade.

But Jadelynn was creeping out, and she didn't think she could hold her in any longer.

She could hear her father moving around downstairs, and fear seized her entire being.

She loved her father, she did. But she knew he didn't truly care about her. She knew, deep down, that he had blamed her all those years ago when her mother had left him.

He didn't realize that she had left _her_ too.

He didnt realize that _she_ was hurting too.

Jade felt her phone vibrating in her pocket and she quickly slid it out.

She knew before she checked her texts that it was Beck. No one else cared enough.

_Jade, I'm worried. Come over. -Beck_

She slid the phone back into her pocket, her shoulder aching with a dull pain.

She wouldn't tell anyone about her father.

She wouldn't tell Beck that she was still painfully waiting for the day when he would change.

She coudn't help but think that somewhere deep down, her father still loved her.

That he still cared.

Suddenly, the movements downstairs became still, and a silence enveloped the large house. Jade sa montionless, her leg shaking to the beat of her frantic heart. In a moment, footsteps sounded on the stairs, a sound that sent Jade panicking. Time seemed to stand still. Jade's mind wandered in a frenzy. What did she do this time? She tried to remember her day at school. Had she gotten in trouble? Did she forget to take the trash out?

A picture of Beck flashed in her mind and for a breif moment she wished she had listened to him.

The door swished open in a quick, angry motion, and Jade braced herself for the inevitable.

After it happened, Jade wondered how, again, she could be such an idiot.

_You're a stupid, stupid idiot._

She was an idiot for believing her father could ever change. That he could ever stop blaming her for her mother's actions.

_She left because you're an asshole._

Jade sat up and glanced at herself in the mirror. A girl she didn't reconize stared back at her.

A girl with smudges of mascara running down her face.

A girl whose face was half covered in large, purple bruises.

A girl with vacant eyes.

She touched her face and instantly wicned at the pain that radiated through her thin, weak body.

She knew in that moment that she couldn't do it anymore.


	3. Chapter 3

Beck, without a doubt, loved Jade.

There was something more, though. Something underneath the depth of their relationship that alwayskept him coming back.

He was always a sucker for fixing broken things. Cars, Ipods, Computers.

Jade.

Inexplicably, and as much as it hurt, he enjoyed the way she came to him when in distress, standing on his doorstep with running tears and broken smiles just waiting to be fixed. He enjoyed the fact that he had a purpose in their relationship.

His job was to assuage her bad tempter, relieve her msery.

Fix her.

And that was what always kept him coming back.

And so, when, that evening, she stood on his doorstep, duffell bag over one shoulder, her face bruised, her mouth tugged into a pernament frown, Beck took her into his arms until she finally, finally unraveled.

She was crying now, sobbing against his chest. The ache in her chest was a gaping whole that only Beck could fix, and he knew just how to do it.

He was going to fix this.

He managed to lead her over the bed, where she plopped down, a heap of defeated bones. Her eyes stared forward, her palms shaking on her lap.

Beck paced in front of her, running his hands through his hair. Jade watched with a sense of love surging through her.

She didn't need her father. She had everything she needed right here.

"We have to call the police," Beck finally said.

Jade vigorously shook her head.

"I'm not getting put in foster care, Beck."

Beck stopped pacing, stood in front of her. He took in her tired features, the way her shoulders slouched.

He was gazing at her with an expression that she couldn't read.

"Maybe we need to find your mom."

Jade sat on Beck's bed, thinking that the last thing she wanted to do was find her mother.

Her mother had volunteeringly walked out on her only daughter. She had left Jade on her own with her monstruous father.

Surely her mother had to know what he was capable of.

But yet...

She dreamed of finding her mother for years. In her dreams, happy reunions played out with long embraces and hearfelt apologies.

But she knew, deep down, it wouldn't be that way.

Her mother could have taken Jade with her.

All of this hurt, all of this pain could have been avoided.

She could still have been Jadelynn right now.

The first though that popped into her mind was to tell Beck no.

Absolutely not.

Instead, she looked up with a determined glint in her eyes.

"Alright."


End file.
